The role of school administration is not only to store, compile and retrieve reports, but also to present useful information that can interpreted intelligently to guide strategic decisions which maximise the potential of your school.

The Settlers High School in Bellville, Cape Town, in the Western Cape, purchased a licence to use ‘Staffroom’ school administration software about three years ago. Here is what Paul Haupt, the vice principal, says about the school’s experience with Staffroom:

“It was a well-considered decision to migrate from a local serverbased school administration package to a web-based product, which was taken after considerable research into what is available on the market. As the administrator responsible for handling marks, reports, schedules and the entire spectrum of learner and teacher information at the school, I am happy to report that it was well worth the move. This is a product that my principal, the teaching staff and our administration personnel endorse with alacrity.

Pleasing interface

“The first thing that strikes the Staffroom user is a pleasing interface, along the lines of popular social media platforms with which most staff members are already entirely familiar. Another major advantage of this product is its accessibility. Being webbased, it is not bound to the local school server and staff can work on their mark books and look up information at will, as long as they have access to a browser. An added bonus is the portability of the administration system, which renders beautifully on smaller monitors such as those on tablets and cellular devices.

Superb support

“From an administrator’s perspective, the superb service offered by Eiffel Corp is most welcome. Issues are attended to in a friendly, courteous manner by the technical support team and the developers. Much appreciated is the efficiency with which queries are dealt, and the hands-on help offered is beyond that which is expected from the support team. When a matter proves to be beyond the scope of the support team’s ability to manage, they unhesitatingly refer issues to the developer, who invariably resolves them in an entirely acceptable time span.

“Eiffel Corp has shown itself to be eager to maintain cordial relations with its user base. Management and client service specialists have remained directly engaged with our school and have been attentive to our requests and suggestions for improvements to their system. It is admirable that all levels of support and management actively solicit our opinions and are willing to effect changes to meet the demands of a constantly changing education administration and policy framework. In this respect, the company is dynamic and makes adjustments as the needs arise.

Seamless integration

“Staffroom also takes cognisance of the need to facilitate integration with software that is essentially peripheral to its core business. Because of the ease with which data can be exported to commercial software packages, such as Excel and Word, and the simple creation of PDF documents, data capture from the Western Cape education department Centralised Educational Management Information System (CEMIS) is relatively seamless.

“Admittedly, The Settlers High School has not yet used all the features offered by Staffroom. We are rolling out the features as rapidly as we are able to train staff to utilise these effectively. Nevertheless, we are delighted with the product and those elements of it we have used at this juncture.

“Staffroom is very highly recommended.”

Staffroom can put you in a better position to make informed decisions when taking your school forward. If you would like to know how Staffroom can help streamline your school
administration, visit: http://mystaffroom.net.